Richard Dawkins: bigoted against those with Down's syndrome?

[pipi_k]

239. I don't know about "immoral" but...

after having worked for a few years in a program for people with different (and differing levels of) mental disabilities, all I can say is that there were times I truly did think it was cruel to have brought some of them into the world.

Life? LIFE??

Yeah, what about quality of life?

Before being released from the hospitals/institutions in the 80s, so many of them were victims of staff and other residents.

I worked at two houses. First one the clients were non-verbal, lower functioning. One of the young men had a life that involved, in the group home, taking off all of his clothing in his bedroom, and kneeling on his waterbed mattress (no sheets, he kept removing those as well) and engaging in endless masturbation or waving and flapping his hands in front of his face.

The higher functioning people in the other house didn't do that sort of thing, but they did suffer emotionally, knowing they were different from other people. One of the young men there kept asking me why he had to be different. The other kept saying he wanted to learn how to drive a car and get his drivers license (obviously impossible).

Don't get me wrong...they were delightful people and I loved working with them. But there were days when it was all I could do to keep from crying because they were hurting so badly.

And really, let's talk about how "moral" the family of the young woman in the second house was by ignoring her for weeks at a time. At least the parents of the two young men were involved in their lives.

I guess this is an issue that's between would-be parents and their own consciences.

What's "immoral"...what isn't. What's cruel...what isn't.